Advertisers which use video bloggers to promote their brands are facing a major crackdown from the ad watchdog after an investigation found many do not reveal to their millions of viewers that they get paid to do so.
The move follows an investigation by the BBC into a campaign for Mondelez UK brand Oreo which ran on five leading vlogger sites with a combined subscription base of 7.2 million – nearly as many viewers as Downton Abbey.
The five vloggers – TomSka (which has 3.2 million subscribers), AmazingPhil (2.2 million), DarkSquidge (390,000), Emma Blackery (830,000) and KickThePj (605,000) – urged subscribers to participate in the Oreo “lick race”. Participants were encouraged to twist the Oreo biscuit and lick off the crème filling, before showing it to their opponent, dunk the biscuit, eat the Oreo and drink all the milk. The first one to finish won the race.
But one BBC journalist complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that videos were not clearly identified as marketing communications, sparking an investigation.
In its defence, Mondelez UK said it was not its intention to mislead consumers, although it admitted the vloggers had been paid to run ads for Oreo and provided with the product for use in the video.
The company went on to claim that each vlogger referenced the fact they had worked with Oreo, and that it thought the inclusion of the acknowledgement at the end of the content did not render it unidentifiable as an ad.
But the ASA pointed out that the presentation of each ad was “very much in keeping” with the editorial content of each vlogger’s YouTube channel and would not be immediately clear they were marketing communications from the style alone.
While the regulator conceded that there was a disclosure statement, such as “Thanks to Oreo for making this video possible”, these were too hidden.
Banning Mondelez from repeating the videos, the ASA claimed it will now be keeping a close eye on how vloggers promote brands and has issued new guidelines about the practice.
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